Please discuss! No uncritical sectarianism, bad faith arguments, etc.
Important questions:
- Is the strategy most socialist organizations in the US are using, in your opinion, a good one? What else should they do?
- As individual socialist, what do you think we should be doing? What groups are worth joining?
- What should be done about the sudden rise of socially reactionary beliefs and laws across the country?
Reading posted by users:
Where’s the Winter Palace?, posted by @CannotSleep420@lemmygrad.ml, written by unknown author, I checked and could not find one on the article.
Conclusion from this text, that I think summarizes it’s premise quite well:
We believe that, in the U.S. in 2018, the truly important theoretical tasks have not been solved. We are in a period of a nascent socialist movement since the 2008 financial crisis. We should not be afraid of new ideas, and should look forward instead of harping on the 20th century. Without bending to reformism or adventurism, we must feel free to put everything back on the table and come to build strategy and theory through struggle.
(Emphasis mine)
I (somewhat) agree with your first point, with the caveat that I think it is easier than you say it is. See this article, I believe the approach we have been taking to defeat US propaganda is non-materialistic and assumes that we can just say the right ideas at someone and then they will agree. Once we start adapting a more materialistic method to counteract propaganda (something which I believe would require already existing power), then we can see if anarchists are practically unredeemable or not (I am aware the writer of that article would probably murder me for citing it in such a context, but, uhhh).
The second is why I specified any such “meta-organization” would have to have multiple goals, and while it would probably be explicitly revolutionary, being too specific could lead to the sectarian splintering we’ve been seeing with most US parties and defeat the whole purpose of it
It would be possible to define something to pursue on top of anti-imperialism that would prevent the issue you mentioned. I would suggest a radical approach to anti-racism, systemic anti-racism, queer struggle, feminism, and anti-ableism, as well as opposition to the prison slavery system and support of labor.
This organization would, rather than unite the left under anti-imperialism alone, instead unite the left under a synthesis of the goals of those who are most likely to be proletarian in this country, and anti-imperialism
Instead of having a party with a strict ideology pre-defined for itself, it would be a meta-organization which seeks to tie together all of the disparate goals of the proletariat
The meta-organization element is essential. If a party were to be created under this principle, it would compete with the time and energy of other organizations. Optimally, the only significant labor the organization should require for organizing should be in organizing its own members, and by allowing members to be part of other political parties (and primarily spend time and energy in them) we could align and tie back together the struggles of these disparate parties into a singular force for the proletariat. A super-coalition.
Of course, this is all speculation and I have no idea if this would work. It seems more effective than just creating more ideological parties for the current US left, but even that I’m unsure of.